Creation of document with structured document id?

[johanp]

My organization is in the proces of updating our antiquated document management. We use a structured document numbering system to create unique (but still understandable) document id depending on organization unit, area, type of dcument etc.

In our current system this is created automatically for the document when it is created (depending on user settings) and nothing in principle that the average user has to think so much about. The user basically just have to select what project he/she is working on and what type of document it is (from a very short list). The system then generates the unique ID and the opens the document in for example Word.

My question is now if Alfresco would be able to manage this workflow by creating this type of unique document number while adhering to the established structure? (i.e. using a unique "random" internal alfresco DB key is not good enough as document number)

For users it should be as simple as clicknig a single button "Create document" and then just give the absolute minimum of information that is uniqe for this document (and get the more static information from a user profile).

Can anyone comment on how much customization this would be (if it is at all possible?)

[sylvain78]

Hi,

I would suggest that using custom behaviors,it would be fairly easy to implement this feature as long as the mandatory properties are known on document creation.
More importantly, custom behaviours are repository-wide so they will apply no matter how you capture the document (WebDAV, CIFS, IMAP, etc.).

Excellent tutorial by Jeff Potts :
http://ecmarchitect.com/images/articles/alfresco-behavior/behavior-article.pdf

Anybody has a better idea?

Sylvain

[marutiprasad]

i think a custom meta data filed is an ideal option because the default alfresco properties like noderef customization is not an secure option. you can do the following

1. create a metadata and define the same in an aspect.
2. for that particular content type (your own/default one) add the aspect.
3. update the aspects metadata property.

using the alfresco rules we can trigger the above script.